I really admire all you guys who can operate multiple Top Tier DAW's. You must know so much about the ins and outs of each one of them and how they work that you can only conclude that the solutions to your DAW dilemmas (and the music you can't make inside just one of them) must lie in carefully weaving several of them together just to get that last 1 percent of wow factor. Every now and then I get to wonder if there is something wrong with me, in that I can actually start and finish something in Live.

And this year with even more new stuff to learn,its going to be an exciting year for me and producing new ambient music

Yes, I realize that a lot of people have migrated to Live from something else... the ability to rewire makes it easy to hang onto the old and familiar. I can't help but wonder if that is an excuse though to not take your new DAW seriously. Why not just delete the old DAW and be done with it? Is it a feeling of 'loosing money' or something? I am busy trying to learn how to skin a cat many ways inside of Live. I find it hard to conceive that I would ever want to figure out how to do the same exact thing in several other DAW's?

On a slightly different note, I caught myself today judging myself negatively. I started an 'Ambient' project in Live and momentarily thought that the word 'Ambient' was an excuse for 'I actually fcuken can't make anything else sensible musically,' so I will just call it Ambient.

Hi gjm

Well I bought a lot of Reason refills over the years,and Im not going to just throw that away.Costs too much over the years. The idea of using 2 DAW's gives me a huge amount of flexibility.I like Lives features,such as easy routing of side chain as an example.And Reason Kongs drum designer as another .

For me ambient is not just being lazy,far from it There is a lot of thought and time going into making soundscapes,a lot of technical stuff,beat making etc,composition etc There are a lot of ambient making people out there,too

Well I bought a lot of Reason refills over the years,and Im not going to just throw that away.Costs too much over the years. The idea of using 2 DAW's gives me a huge amount of flexibility.I like Lives features,such as easy routing of side chain as an example.And Reason Kongs drum designer as another .

I hear you regarding the investment over time. I have quite a few of Live's Packs on top of Suite. I use Live quite a bit and often feel a bit of guilt for money spent.

I have tried several other DAW's, Reaper, Studio One, Acid, Sequel, Logic and Garageband. The one I got the most out of was Garageband. Unfortunately it can only have a limited relationship with Live. I suppose the level of competence I am at with the art/process of composing/recording/mixing is so basic that I am never blocked by Live in any way to do what I want to do. I have a couple of plugins, but even then I am trying to drop them.

david.barker wrote:

For me ambient is not just being lazy,far from it There is a lot of thought and time going into making soundscapes,a lot of technical stuff,beat making etc,composition etc There are a lot of ambient making people out there,too

Making Ambient music, Tips, Methods, workflow etc would make an interesting thread (I think). I am pretty well locked into structure dominant compositions, ie building everything around scale tone chord sequences. I am also comfortable with hearing just the basic instruments (ie guitars, piano, drums) with small adjustments to tone. Pretty traditional stuff really. I can only think of Ambient in terms of a relationship with something visual. Composing to imagery makes it easier to think about. Getting an insight into how others compose as well as hearing their work in context might be good.

gjm, I do agree to an extant with what you mean regarding sticking to one program and learning it well. Ableton 8 has enough in it to keep me busy probably for the rest of my life, really. But I get inspired by trying out new things too. Sometimes I need to move on to something else for a bit and when I come back to it my mind is refreshed and I get inspired once again. To me, since I am already familiar with Reason, its worth checking out, the upgrade price is very fair, and they have introduced a lot of new things since version 4 that I am interested in.For me, more time is wasted elsewhere doing non music related things. David, keep working on the ambient. I like to listen to this style of music when I go to bed at night. I haven't heard a lot of ambient music, but I do like Robert Rich. His rainforest album is excellent.Thanks for all the comments everyone

I started with Reason 3, back in 2006 or so; then arrived at Live via a brief and very awkward flirtation with Cubase. I still have Reason 3 on my machine, and use it once in a blue moon (they have one or two presets on their Subtractor synth that I have not yet figured out how to duplicate on Operator) but that's it. I am always a bit surprised to hear that Reason is still around; I can't see why anyone would bother. But horses for courses, I expect; tastes differ

Well I bought a lot of Reason refills over the years,and Im not going to just throw that away.Costs too much over the years. The idea of using 2 DAW's gives me a huge amount of flexibility.I like Lives features,such as easy routing of side chain as an example.And Reason Kongs drum designer as another .

I hear you regarding the investment over time. I have quite a few of Live's Packs on top of Suite. I use Live quite a bit and often feel a bit of guilt for money spent.

I have tried several other DAW's, Reaper, Studio One, Acid, Sequel, Logic and Garageband. The one I got the most out of was Garageband. Unfortunately it can only have a limited relationship with Live. I suppose the level of competence I am at with the art/process of composing/recording/mixing is so basic that I am never blocked by Live in any way to do what I want to do. I have a couple of plugins, but even then I am trying to drop them.

david.barker wrote:

For me ambient is not just being lazy,far from it There is a lot of thought and time going into making soundscapes,a lot of technical stuff,beat making etc,composition etc There are a lot of ambient making people out there,too

Making Ambient music, Tips, Methods, workflow etc would make an interesting thread (I think). I am pretty well locked into structure dominant compositions, ie building everything around scale tone chord sequences. I am also comfortable with hearing just the basic instruments (ie guitars, piano, drums) with small adjustments to tone. Pretty traditional stuff really. I can only think of Ambient in terms of a relationship with something visual. Composing to imagery makes it easier to think about. Getting an insight into how others compose as well as hearing their work in context might be good.

I'm a big fan of horror and sci fi films

so i tend to get caught up in imagining scenes,that relate to sounds,and get carried away,(I have a vivid imagination,lol)

But that's the great thing I enjoy,having developed an ear for sounds that fit together.Which is one of the many reasons I like to make sounds in Reason, and Live ,but to use Live to produce or create ideas.

the idea of Lives session view where you can quickly try out ideas,and swap stuff about with ease,is a firm favorite choice for me to choose Live as an additional tool kit to use.

Routing in Live is much easier,too, the warping engine in Live is great too

I do have structure in my work,and stick to a good method,which helps me finish tracks.Rather than leaving them for months getting frustrated (as before when I was just starting out)

Making Ambient music, Tips, Methods, workflow etc would make an interesting thread (I think). I am pretty well locked into structure dominant compositions, ie building everything around scale tone chord sequences. I am also comfortable with hearing just the basic instruments (ie guitars, piano, drums) with small adjustments to tone. Pretty traditional stuff really. I can only think of Ambient in terms of a relationship with something visual. Composing to imagery makes it easier to think about. Getting an insight into how others compose as well as hearing their work in context might be good.

But for some strange reason people seem to favour talking about Ableton Live than Reason over here

Even so I'm excited, to a certain extend. Not so excited that I want to grab it the moment its out, but its an upgrade I'll be getting myself nonetheless. I don't quite care for most features since Live sits at the heart of my setup, but features like making REX loops as well as their upcoming new audio effect score pretty high with me.

For me Reason is the perfect extension to Live. While Live's arrangement is pretty standard it fails in comparison to the sequencer in Reason (in my opinion of course, but 'qwerty' is simply so much more intuitive than using 'b' (draw), control-e (split) or control-j (consolidate)).

Of course; "blocks" is also pretty nice, but being fully accustomed to session view I think the latter is the better "experimental environment".

And so on

Even so; I am looking forward to messing with some audio in Live (MIDI extraction), then sending it into Reason for further processing. Perhaps making a REX loop along the way. Slicing in Live is pretty slick, but the Rex player can provide a little more effects.

You must know so much about the ins and outs of each one of them and how they work that you can only conclude that the solutions to your DAW dilemmas (and the music you can't make inside just one of them) must lie in carefully weaving several of them together just to get that last 1 percent of wow factor. Every now and then I get to wonder if there is something wrong with me, in that I can actually start and finish something in Live.

Don't feel bad. First of all, sure.. There are many who purchase certain extensions because they want to dive deeper into them and try and get as much out of it as possible.

But don't be fooled here; there are also plenty of people who are merely in for the extensions and not so much for the other environment. Or put differently: those merely pick up other stuff because of the "new factor" and not so much with the idea that it'll enhance their workflow.

Your mileage may vary of course...

Even so; as said don't feel too bad. This isn't just you, this has happened to many people already, no matter what DAW(s) they use. Also including many Reason users. In fact; one of the recent new features "Blocks" (introduced some time ago) was fuelled by this same problem; how to get from an unfinished loop to something more complete. Like demonstrated in this micro tutorial (Youtube link).

It also helps us with creating a new song btw. You only need some magic powder, snap your fingers and add a puff of smoke. Amazing

But honestly; its not you, nor a problem happening with Live.

Heck; I know plenty of people using (almost) the same gear as I have and STILL manage to end up stuck after having build some loops.

Although I am still working on a "ReasonAble" Max for Live device which should provide easier access to the Reason devices straight from within Live. Thing is; it has gotten a rather low priority as of late (things to do..).

Right now I usually keep things separated, and if I need some change in the Reason section I tend to use its own sequencer for it. The fun part is that I can easily control the master transport from within Reason (clicking 'play' in Reason will also start playing in Live) and when I click "record" in Reason it'll record the automation straight into its own sequencer.

You know, since you mention it, I do seem to recollect it being mentioned somewhere on here, perhaps in passing. I almost kind of feel bad now like I should apologize. But, then again, its just a stupid thread on a forum. But on the other hand, some people take these threads VERY seriously. So deanc2000, I apologize, didn't mean to step on your toes there.

Not exited about Reason 7. To me, the strenghts of Reason were always the (at the time) good sounding synths and cpu-friendlyness. With a nearly unlimited choice of plugin instruments and devices, and fast multicore cpus, I don`t feel the need to use Reason anymore. There are better sounding VST synths nowadays. Midi-out? Finally an essential feature that should be there in the first place. Regarding their old marketing verdict that Reason is a studio-in-a-box, which contains everything you`ll ever need, it`s a bit inconsistent. I know they were forced by their customers, but still... The best thing they did in a long time was opening Reason for third party developers. Good move, but you´re still forced to use a Rack extension with Reason or Rewire. You can`t just buy it once (VST) and use it in different apps (without rewiring Reason).